


Fast and Loose

by thankyouturtle



Category: Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Genre: CBB Drabbles, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-20
Updated: 2011-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-15 19:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouturtle/pseuds/thankyouturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Len is breaking off her engagement with Reg, and she knows exactly how her mother is going to react.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fast and Loose

_Don't play fast and loose with him, Len..._

Len shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She'd come home from Oxford with her mind absolutely made up, and yet now, at the very first hurdle, she found she was faltering. _Don't play fast and loose_ , her mother had said. In Len's mind's eye Joey's face was stern, her words sharp. _Don't play fast and loose_... Her stomach clenched. Stop being silly, she told herself. No matter how disappointed Mamma was, telling her wasn't going to be nearly as hard as telling Reg.

"Alright, my lamb! Clare is safely playing with her new stuffed horsey Bride sent her, so we should have some time to ourselves without any little pitchers! Here - help yourself to a choccy," and Joey produced a many-layered box of chocolates. Len declined, but Joey took her time selecting one, apparently not noticing the way her eldest daughter was fidgeting nervously as she waited. Finally, having found one that was appropriately caramel-y, she looked at Len with a smile. "So why did you want to talk?" she asked.

Len glanced at the bookshelves, the carpet, her hands twisting in her lap. Anywhere but her mother's face, into those eyes that saw too much at times. "I've been thinking," she began. "I know that Auntie Hilda wants me to start at the Chalet School once I've graduated, but I thought maybe - with the kids still there - it might be a better idea if I went back to the first plan, and taught in England for a few years, first." Now she glanced at Joey, through her lashes, and saw that she was nodding approvingly.

"A good plan," she said. "I'll be sorry not to have you close to home, of course, but I know how hard it can be to teach somewhere where you know half the school already - not to mention the mistresses ready to remind you of your past misdeeds at the least provocation!" She gave her daughter a matey grin, and the corners of Len's mouth automatically flicked up in response. But she wasn't done yet.

"There's more," she continued, feeling her heart start to beat a little faster. "I know - I know you and Dad will be disappointed, and I know we've already started the preparations, and I can pay you back for any money you've spent - and, and maybe you'll not want to see me for a little while, because you'll be angry, but..." She paused, swallowed. This was it, she told herself. She had to say something now.

"Oh Len," her mother said, sadly. "I've known for a long time now that you're not in love with Reg." And Len stared at her, the words she'd been struggling to say dying on her lips.

"You - you knew?" was all she managed to stammer out.

"Very strongly suspected, if you prefer. Maybe I should have said something earlier, but-" Joey hesitated. "I've never been very good at talking about - affairs of the heart. And - there was always a chance I was wrong, after all."

"You knew," Len said again. "For how long?"

"I wondered - even when you were first engaged, I wondered." Don't play fast and loose, she'd said. Len had always thought her mother was warning her off - well, leading Reg on. But had she meant that she'd suspected - even before Len had known herself - that what Len thought was love was only a childish infatuation?

"Why didn't you stop me?" she demanded. "You could have stopped the engagement, if you didn't think it was right."

"What would you have done," Joey said, "If your father and I had said there was to be no engagement - outright?"

"I wouldn't have agreed to marry him, of course," Len said promptly. Then, "But - I would have resented it, I think. I thought I was so much a grown-up when I was finishing school..." And with Margot having decided on her own life's journey, perhaps she'd been a little quick to make sure she was, too. She shook her head. "But couldn't you have done more to make Reg stay away - wait until I was older? I was so much a kid, Mamma - you must have seen that."

Joey's mouth twisted a little. "You're right, Len. I thought that your father having words with Reg would be enough to warn him off - until you'd left school, at least. If I'd known he was making sheep's eyes at you whenever he got the chance!" She sighed. "But you three were our first children, Len. We were bound to make mistakes. All I can do is say I'm sorry."

"You're sorry," Len repeated. "I thought - I thought you'd be disappointed. Not sorry. I wish I'd been brave enough to say something earlier. I wish you had. But I- how many mothers would be happy for their daughters to break off an engagement. I - I'm not sure how I should be feeling." She breathed in, a shuddering breath, and found herself pulled into a hug.

"Feel happy," her mother suggested. "That's all your father and I want for you."

Len dashed her hand across her eyes, catching a stray tear. "Thank you," she whispered. "Do you think - could you tell Papa, please? And the others? I know every at the School will have questions - and the kids, too - and I don't want to have to deal with it more than I have to. I know that's cowardly-"

"It's perfectly natural," Joey reassured her. "Would you like me to speak to Reg, too?"

"N-o. That really is something I'll have to do myself." Len sniffed, and then gave Joey a brave smile. Knowing that her mother was going to support her after all - suddenly, breaking off things with Reg didn't seem so daunting.

 _Don't play fast and loose with him, Len..._ It was no more than a very faint echo, now, a voice tinged with caution and worry.

 _I didn't_ , she told the voice, secure in her mother's arms. _I didn't_.

**Author's Note:**

> So many fics have Joey acting horrendously badly to Len when she decides she doesn't want to be with Reg; and being a rabid Joey!wife to the end I had to have her behaving in a somewhat more sympathetic light... Len and Reg's relationship is written pretty poorly to begin with and Joey's "fast and loose" comment seems not only OOC for her, but for almost any CS character. Not even poor Joan Baker gets that accusation! So this is decidedly a fix-it fic. /ramble


End file.
